Looks like it’s open season in the US for anyone who has anything to do with WikiLeaks.

Jacob Appelbaum (of TOR) was detained in the US border after returning to the US from The Netherlands earlier today. He was detained for three hours while the stormtroopers from the US Army and ICE questioned him about WikiLeaks (he’s a WikiLeaks contributor), searched his belongings (incl. his computer) and seized three cellphones.

This is what it’s become? Anyone even remotely involved with the organization is now subject to “random” searches and having their belongings seized for no good reason.

It’ll be curious to know, if the US Army really thought Mr. Appelbaum had anything to do with the Afghanistan war documents leak or were they just harrassing him for being associated with their new Public Enemy Number One.

Everyone seems to be quite pleased with themselves right now about “preventing” a new terror attack on New York City.

I do hope someone in an authoritative position in the Department of Homeland Security realizes soon that the bomb failed to detonate and it was only spotted after it was triggered.

Someone’s been planning the attack for some time, and nobody noticed. Someone loaded a car with gasoline and other explosives, drove it to mid-manhattan, and nobody noticed. Assuming the perpetrator(s) was/were foreign, they had to travel to US, and none of the lists and other security measures at the borders caught them.

RIAA, MPAA and other organizations have submitted their joint comment.

The EFF is calling out some of the most “interesting” aspects of that comment.

RIAA/MPAA want consumers to install anti-copyright infringement on their home computers. Think of it as a sort of virus scanner, but for illegal files instead.

They also want all network providers to scan their network traffic and prevent copyright infringement happening on their networks. At least they’re only asking for reasonable measures.

They want increased searches on US borders, and add declarations in the US customs forms for intellectual property. What this would mean is that next time you come into the US from abroad, and your iPod has ripped music on it, you’d have to disclose that to the US Customs officers and most likely have the iPod confiscated (and face possible sanctions).

They want the US Government to pressure other Governments to adopt more copyright friendly policies.

And finally they want the DOJ and DHS to hunt down pirates at the tax-payers’ expense.